


A Lot About Living and a Little About Love

by awittyname



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Billy Ray Cyrus totally is a good musician, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gratuitous country music, Merlin backstory, Slow Burn, There are also line dancing lessons, There's country roads, but no burning couches, which does mean some angsty bits, why were there no burning couches in tgc?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awittyname/pseuds/awittyname
Summary: He's always played music in the background during missions to stop the agents from being distracted by the various sounds of HQ. He's just never had someone go on a rant about his taste in music before. "Merlin, are you torturing a cat back there?" Or go off on a completely unrelated tangent about how they really should dress up like Austin Powers so they can stop using so many amnesia darts when one of them lets slip at the pub that they're totally a spy.Or: a slow burn romance featuring way too much country music.





	A Lot About Living and a Little About Love

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as just a short thing where all the characters give Merlin shit for his taste in music and somehow became 6 chapters of TGC compliant slow-burn Roxlin romance with a fair bit of Merlin backstory in there too for good measure. Yes, there's lots of snarky back and forth, but fair warning that this isn't a fix it fic, and uh, as such, the penultimate chapter still involves John Denver and a lack of couch burning while John Denver is being sung

“What the bloody fuck?!” 

“Lancelot?” He questions, eyes scanning the monitor in front of him, wondering what on earth could provoke such a reaction that he hadn't seen, and-

“Merlin, what the hell is that playing in the background? Is someone torturing a cat?” He gives an indignant huff and turns the volume up on the speakers, so that the whole song could be heard and not just the thin reedy notes that the fiddle was currently playing could be heard. “No, really, who are you advanced interrogating?” 

“If you would kindly pay attention to the fact that there are four armed guards around the next corner rather than maligning my taste in music-” 

“You willingly subject yourself to this-abomination?” 

“Oh, that's rich, you can make fun of Alan Jackson while your playlists are full of artists that reach into the forgotten corners of Unicode to replace actual letters with various symbols.” 

“You can at least dance to Kesha. I don't know what you can do to this. Cry into your beer?” The song had changed to something rather slower. “Is this really-” she paused, both to confirm that her ears weren't actually deceiving her and to drop three of the four guards with three bullets, twisting the fourths arm so far behind his back she knew Merlin could hear the snap of the bones through the glasses. “Are you really playing Jimmy Buffett through the earpiece?” 

“You’re the one that recognized it right off.” There was some intended bite to the words, but she could hear the smile in them too. “Two more guards inside the room, but so’s the flash drive you’re here for.” 

“Just because I recognize it doesn’t mean it’s objectively good music.” 

“If we're talking objectivity, perhaps you should be focusing on the mission rather than what I'm playing in the background.”

“Maybe if it were something good to listen to, I could.”

“You have no room to talk. I’ve seen your Spotify playlists. You not only have Taylor Swift but also Miley Cyrus on there, you can’t complain about those that paved the way for them.” If he was honest with himself, the fact that she was able to maintain an entire conversation about music with him while taking out an entire complex of international arms dealers should not have been something that he found as interesting as he did. He should have done the responsible thing, having her focus on the mission and not engage in banter over what was currently coming out of the speakers behind him. But he couldn't deny the fact that even bantering about music she was efficient. 

Efficient enough that she was continuing to carry on about his music selection, designed to hide the various other background noises that permeated HQ and that was intended to be something ignored, even as she took out the two guards that were standing watch over a flash drive containing all the info they would need to take down an entire ring of black market arms traders that had very rapidly escalated from mp5’s that idiot rednecks left unlocked in their cars to dirty bombs in a shockingly short amount of time. “You can't hate on Wrecking Ball. It's one of the best break up songs ever.”

“Her father wrote better.”

“Did you just admit to liking Billy Ray Cyrus? Oh god, when you still had hair you had a mullet didn't you?”

“I don't have the ability to pull one off” He let his voice drip with faux disappointment at the thought.

“Anybody can pull off a mullet because it looks horrible on anyone.”

“David Bowie would beg to differ.” 

“Bowie doesn't count. Bowie was able to pull off all kinds of shit that no one else can. He made being a fucking Nazi sexy. And he made fishnets on a man sexy. Not even Rocky Horror did that. As much as I love the movie, the entirety of Tim Curry’s sex appeal is in his personality. And his voice.” He was ready to swear as he saw the two guards the second she did, charging down the hall, no doubt having been alerted by the previous gunshots. Silencers didn't really do all that much in close quarters after all, and this place was far from a palace. 100 decibels was still bloody loud, and half the use of a silencer in the field was to keep the agent's ears from ringing when they needed awareness of the situation. Yet, she wasn't put off in the slightest, gun easily drawn and both men taken down as though it was nothing. He was, however. He should have noticed them coming well before she did, but instead they were talking about-he wasn't even entirely sure what the topic was at the moment.

“Well there goes my plan to use Galahad as Rocky.” it's deadpanned, but the cackle of laughter he gets on the other end of the line forces his lips to twitch upwards on their own accord. 

“I take back everything I’ve said about your music if you can find a reason to put Eggsy in a pair of gold lamé spanx. I will pay you money if you can do it and get a photo of it. He gets all weirdly self conscious about the worst things.” 

“I really don't want to know what kind of things the two of you get up to.” 

“Oh it's great fun watching Mr. Big Badass Super Spy stammer and blush over the daftest shit. Ask him to run to Tesco to buy you kotex while you're busy with one of the things from Aliens trying to claw its way out of your uterus? He's got no problem with it. Buy him a pair of Union Jack pants because he's obviously trying to channel Austin Powers with that haircut and he's red as a tomato.” He sat there for a moment, simply staring at the monitor as she got into her car and drove-at a rather high rate of speed, rather closely pursued by two more guards, sticking her head out the window on straightaways to fire back at them, all while maintaining a completely unrelated conversation. 

“Well, that was some rather vivid imagery.” He waited just a beat, just long enough for her to think it was the first half of the comment that would make him uncomfortable, and just long enough for her to safely land the bloody car after launching it off a dock onto a rapidly departing ferry. “I never would have thought of it but now that you say it I feel like I should go in halves with you to buy him a very patriotic mini Cooper until he does something better with his hair. I'll have to talk to Andrew about finding some - it was dark blue, wasn't it? - velvet for a suit.” 

“Have you really watched Austin Powers?” 

“I work for a very secret British spy agency. I had no choice but to watch it and make sure no one had decided to line their pockets by spilling secrets to Hollywood.”

“Are you quite sure you weren't the inspiration for Dr Evil?”

“Do I seem asinine enough to think sharks with lasers on their heads would ever work? Besides the man has horrible fashion sense and an ugly cat.” She's laughing again, and somewhere in the back of his mind he files away how the mock indignation seems to really do it for her, and then wonders why exactly he's making a mental note of what makes her laugh. She's an agent, it's his job to make sure she comes back alive, not that she has a good time. “Sharks. With lasers.” He repeats, sounding borderline scandalized at the very concept, and she laughs harder, and why the fuck is he smiling up at the monitor?

“You have the look. The three of us should all rent ourselves out as professional cosplay. Then when one of us gets pissed and tells someone they're chatting up in the pub that they're totally a spy they don't have to waste an amnesia dart. By the way-you might want to replenish the amnesia darts in fitting room 3.” 

“I don't even want to know which one of you is responsible for that.” He couldn't help the smirk that was crossing his face even as he called for one of the small boats that helped actually fund Kingsman by engaging in wholly legitimate trade routes across various seas and oceans, only occasionally aiding the agency by detouring out of the way to drop someone off, pick them up, or provide a nice quiet place for a chat. “Enjoy your stay at the landfill, Lancelot, there will be a boat coming to get you in about three hours. Ping us if you somehow manage to put yourself in mortal danger. Just please avoid the compactor. Your suit is bulletproof, not crush proof.”

“Landfill? Wait where are you going?” 

“You are safely out of danger, you have Kingsman staff coming for you, I am in need of a stiff drink after this-conversation, and look around you, Lancelot.”

He saw the glasses pan around, finally realizing exactly what kind of ferry she had crash landed on, and heard the resulting groan. “Oh bloody buggering fuck. I had to pick a garbage boat.” 

“Ta ta, Lancelot. Bon voyage.” With that he signed off, sitting back in his chair, playing back the past 45 minutes in his head. He'd not only spent the better part of this mission doing nothing but, well, have a surprisingly good conversation, arguing back and forth about music, mostly. And the idea of Galahad in gold lamé spanx. Not that they would go anywhere near the idea of Rocky Horror with any of the agents. 

He had the sinking feeling that should that movie get mentioned there would suddenly be an outpouring of people thinking it would be a good idea to start a midnight movie night. 

They were spies after all. They needed to have some decorum. They didn’t have to be perfectly James Bond, but they would definitely never have a midnight movie night in headquarters if he could stop it. If nothing else, to save the janitorial crew some heartache with all the glitter. But the fact that he had just had such a fun, pleasant conversation with someone was something that was somewhat resonating in his bones. What the hell had come over him to think that it was a good idea to banter during a mission? She’d nearly gotten shot. 

But then again, the nearly was the important word there. She’d also been damn effective, and had gotten in and out in record time with the banter that was going on. In fact, this had probably been the most effective mission he'd overseen in decades. But it was a dangerous precedent to set. What if he got caught up in witty repartee and made a fatal mistake?

It was something that could never happen again. And if he found himself skimming through the iPod connected to the stereo behind him for the most boring music he could find, trying to create a playlist that would invite no banter, spark no conversation, he couldn't be putting his best agent's life at risk just because of something so inane as music and bad 90s comedies. 

This would not happen again. It could not. But still, something inside of him felt like he was losing something in doing so. He'd never gotten to really know the woman outside of her training, so to suddenly see her as multi faceted and well versed in pop culture and far from just another rich toff who happened to be good at their job, but one who was willing to talk to him not as a member of the support staff, but almost like a friend, well, it was better to shut that line of thinking down, it couldn't lead to anywhere but trouble. 

But still as he built a new playlist he found himself slipping some of his own favorites in there. If she has thought the final solo in Mercury Blues sounded like a mistreated feline she'd likely have words to say about a Garth Brooks song that no longer even made sense to her generation. And just because she had derided the man, proof that Miley’s dad had actually had a damn good career was worth it too. But those songs were saved firmly for the end of the list, for once he knew she would be safely out of danger.

After all wasn't opposed to the conversation in theory, just the timing of it. It felt good to have someone to verbally spar with. It'd been months since V-Day and he had never realized how much he missed the catty back-and-forth he and the former Galahad would trade. So to find it again, it was nice, comforting in a way. 

He'd just have to be more aware when she was out in the field and that meant nothing that could distract either of them. Which meant his Shostakovich collection was suddenly going to get a lot more airtime when she was out and about. And that was going to be fine. It was going to have to be.


End file.
